Superheros, Twinkies, and Seanbaby's interview with D.C. Comics

by El Destino

2001-11-07 18:57:12

Net Flotsam

Spider-Man, Captain America, and BatGirl have something in common. They all fought crime using delicious Hostess Fruit Pies®. Now SeanBaby.com has tracked down an executive at D.C. Comics who worked on the notorious 70s junk food ad campaign.

This is the ultimate match-up. In one corner, an obsessive webmaster who displays 64 of the Hostess comic book ads -- along with scathing commentary from doppelgangers like Dr. Doom, Luke Cage, and Mr. Fish. ("I hope the Mad Magician has a really good excuse for turning into a huge frog and keeping people from eating Twinkies.... Shit, using a trick pack of gum to snap shut on your friend's finger is a craftier plan than this.") You have to understand the depth of SeanBaby's passion. Here's a man who compiled an exhaustive 70-part Masters Thesis about the Superfriends -- and then annotated it with actual video clips from the show. ("After they brilliantly discover that the Superman talking like a crappy robot is really a robot, he runs off.") A man who once wrote that "I've never had sex without closing my eyes and thinking about Wonder Woman at least a little bit." A guy who's taken it upon himself to market a line of "Aquaman Sucks" t-shirts.

And in the other corner? D.C. Comics executive Bob Rozakis, who's written over 400 storylines for D.C. comic books. (From second-tier superheroes like Aquaman, Hawkman, and Superboy to heavy-hitters like Superman.) Rozakis personally wrote the script for six of the Hostess Twinkies ads. Now, sporting a bad moustache, Rozakis takes a break from his duties of answering comic book trivia questions on AOL to field questions from Seanbaby. What's almost as interesting as the interview itself is the fact that it's actually taken place.

But one of the most interesting revelations is that in the ads, the superheroes COULD NOT EAT the cupcakes and Twinkies themselves, "because that could be interpreted as an endorsement of the product." But the product still needed to be featured in the ad, so the writer's challenge was to come up with "some interesting way to stop a crime or a riot or something else using a dessert." I also liked the part in the interview where SeanBaby grilled the D.C. executive about notable titles for the comics like "Spider-Man Spoils a Snatch." (Which Rozakias side-steps by saying "I can't speak for what the guys writing the Marvel ones were trying to do....") And as an added feature, SeanBaby heckles some of the answers Rozakis concocted during his stint as the D.C. Comics "Answer Man."

For Seanbaby it's the successful conclusion to another long, geeky night in Beaverton, Oregon -- and for web-surfers everywhere else, it's a chance to go behind-the-scenes at one of the freakiest advertising hybrids ever. And who knows? Maybe you'll even end up wanting to buy an Aquaman Sucks t-shirt!

Check it out yourself

iambic@pigdog.org